


Help Wanted Nights

by Exterminatorviolence



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: (it's Danny), Asexual Character, Asexuality, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Sexuality Crisis, danny centric, implied depression, self indulgent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 18:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10037747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exterminatorviolence/pseuds/Exterminatorviolence
Summary: Danny doesn’t know when it started, or if it ever had a start, it was just always...there. It’s not like...it’s not like he doesn’t find people attractive - well, that’s exactly it. He doesn’t find people attractive, no, but he finds people aesthetically pleasing. Easy on the eyes. He just doesn’t imagine them naked or ever imagine wanting to have sex with any of them.Or: The one where Danny's asexual because I have a lot of feelings about my own asexuality that I needed to get out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a thing that is mostly here to help me think through my asexuality. 
> 
> All of the events are true to my life, even down to the guy who looks like a blonde Tony Romo, with name changes. Except for dating a guy from Tinder. That's not true, but I have a date on Friday with a guy from Tinder, so it could be? 
> 
> If you don't read this, I don't blame you.

Danny doesn’t know when it started, or if it ever had a start, it was just always...there. It’s not like...it’s not like he doesn’t find people attractive - well, that’s exactly it. He doesn’t find people attractive, no, but he finds people aesthetically pleasing. Easy on the eyes. He just doesn’t imagine them naked or ever imagine wanting to have sex with any of them.   
\-----  
When Danny was twelve he was content with the fact that he thought guys were just as attractive as girls, maybe more. His hormones were going crazy and he’s pretty sure his parents would be worried with how much he jerked off and watched porn. He was just really sexually active with himself from a young age. He didn’t really want to have sex with someone else, but he was twelve, he didn’t think most people wanted to at that age.  
\-----  
At fourteen he had his first sexual encounter with someone else, his first love, and it...wasn’t the worst thing ever, but he doesn’t really want to do it again. He didn’t have sex, god no, but his best friend, Meghan, who’s seventeen tells him that he’s only three fourths of a virgin now that he’s given a blowjob. It wasn’t a great blowjob, sloppy and messy. The only thing he really learned from the experience was that he didn’t have a gag reflex. 

He doesn’t tell anyone else, god what would they think of him giving a blowjob at only fourteen? They break up three months later anyway; they’re too broken for each other. They’d build each other up and up and up, tape each other’s broken pieces back together just to drag each other back down and smash the pieces all over again. It wasn’t healthy for anyone.  
\-----  
When he’s fifteen and pining over the guy whose heart he effectively broke along with his own, Meg tells him that she lost her virginity. He asks who with and she says it was that guy she met a few months back. The one who owns the pickup truck and likes to hunt. He’s not really Danny’s type, but he pats her on the back, congratulating her on losing her virginity because that’s what people are supposed to do, right? Congratulate each other for losing something that is nothing more than a social construct; meaningless and built up into something magical.

She jokes, unaware of his inner monologue, and tells him that he needs to lose his virginity soon. When he asks why, she says because he’s always so sexual that he’d enjoy the fuck out of sex. Tells him that it’s a whole different and amazing experience to have someone do it to you and for you.

Danny doesn’t want someone else to do it to him or for him and he says as much. Only...he’s not sure why he doesn’t want anyone. Maybe it’s because he’s thinking of his ex and he decides that he’s the only one he wants in that way. That’s what he says, and he sounds so convincing that he manages to make himself believe that too.  
\-----  
At sixteen, Danny’s taking antidepressants and sleeping medications on the regular. He’s lost weight, a side effect from the antidepressants, and he’s starting to think that maybe dying without ever sleeping with someone is alright. He still doesn’t quite know why though. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t see sex as important as everyone else seems to. Sure, he still jerks off and, god, he’d rather die before let anyone see his internet history, but sex with someone else? Well that is something else entirely that he wants no business with. 

He looks at pictures of Kate Upton and Evan Peters and feels nothing but discomfort at the thought of sleeping with either of them. He can’t even get it up for the pictures and his imagination. He thinks it’s just an off day, maybe he’s just not feeling it in general, but after a half hour of watching porn, he’s gotten off twice.

So...maybe it’s not an off day.

He googles, tries to stay away from sites like yahoo answers and finds AVEN, this whole community filled with people who are on the asexual spectrum.

Asexual. Maybe that’s what he is. He doesn’t tell anyone, because, how the fuck do you tell somebody that when you know they won’t believe you or even know what asexual means. He keeps it to himself, writes his thoughts in a journal his therapist told him to keep, and thinks. He thinks that people will tell him that he’s not asexual, he just hasn’t found the right person he wants to go all the way with. It’s a valid thought and so he starts to have doubts about asexuality and convinces himself that he’s just waiting for the right person, needs some kind of connection with someone before being physical.  
\-----  
Two years go by, Danny's eighteen, and he doesn’t really pay any thought to asexuality. He just enjoys getting himself off and is content not dating or really interacting with anyone in a sexual way. His best friend is off dating a guy Danny doesn’t really like and having sex on the side with some rich kid who Danny thinks kind of looks like a blonde Tony Romo. She says she’s never actually had an orgasm while having sex and that’s the saddest thing Danny’s ever heard. 

Why have sex then if not to enjoy some mind blowing orgasm? She says people have sex because it’s a physical connection that’s something special and unique and unable to create another way.

He nods along, thinking that sounds like a load of bullshit. He’s fairly certain he’s had more meaningful conversations with strangers than she’s had having any kind of sex with someone. And he’s more than certain he’s had more mind blowing orgasms getting himself off than she’s ever had in her entire life.

 

It’s months before he thinks of asexuality again and that’s after two failed dates with a guy named Sam. Sam was childhood best friend’s with Meg, a job that Danny has since taken, and he’s moved back to town. He wants to hang out with Meg, catch up, but he adds that Danny should join them.

Danny doesn’t know why, can’t really remember ever being friends with the guy, but he figures he’s the ice breaker so things aren’t awkward between Meg and Sam after all these years have gone by. It doesn’t make sense to Meg either.

Weeks go by and they never hang out because their schedules never line up, and then Meg says that her and Sam have already hung out.

“Then why still pester me to hang out?” Danny asks.

Meg shrugs, looking down at her textbook. “Maybe he wants you. Like, remember how we thought that  _ you _ were the ice breaker between me and him?” Danny nods. “Well we’ve already hung out so there’s no need for an ice breaker for me and him, but Sam would think that there’d need to be an ice breaker for you and him.  _ You  _ were never the ice breaker,  _ I  _ was.”

And oh. “Well why doesn’t he just ask to hangout with just me?”

“He thinks you’d say no.”

Well, he’s not wrong, but Danny likes to think he’d give him a chance, so he messages him on Facebook, they talk about fears and depression and Danny gets the feeling that Sam thinks he understands more than he really does. Depression and anxiety come in a lot of different forms, and Sam’s isn’t the same as Danny’s, but the former doesn’t seem to realize that.

They exchange numbers and after a couple days of texting, decide to just hangout without Meg. Sam picks him up and they eat an entire pie for lunch and go to a driving range where Danny golfs for the first time in over a decade. They hangout for hours before Sam drops him off at home where he promptly goes to his room and sleeps.

And it’s not like it wasn’t nice, because it was, he had fun. They talked football and, despite Danny loving Sam’s hated Patriots, he managed to impress the guy with what he knows.

Sam texts him the next day asking if he wants to hangout again tomorrow. And, Christ, they literally just hung out and Danny doesn’t know if he can handle another full day of Sam, but he says yes anyway because people are always telling him to socialize more.

Sam picks him up again and they go to his house, someplace kind of far away and in the middle of nowhere. They play Grand Theft Auto V and Madden and watch YouTube clips of  _ Whose Line is it Anyway? _ and it’s nice, if not a little exhausting.

And then Sam kisses him, something Danny genuinely doesn’t expect, and he doesn’t know how to react. He kisses back, because, that’s only polite, and he’s a little nervous of what could happen if he says no. He doesn’t think anything bad would happen, but it’s better to be safe. 

Sam takes this to mean that they’re in some kind of relationship now and it’s another three long hours before Danny’s back at home, telling Meg about it and how it makes him uncomfortable to think back on.

Then the word  _ asexual _ comes to the front of his mind and he starts to really think. He thinks of how he’s never wanted to have sex with anyone, not even his first love, and how he can only get turned on if there’s some kind of porn involved starring more than one person. He tries to jerk off only using his imagination like Meg somehow does, but he can’t. He can’t even get it up.

He talks to his therapist about it, scared because he hasn’t had a sexuality crisis since he was thirteen. Apparently it’s normal, just not well known, and the more he talks about it, the more they both think that asexual is what he is.

He texts Sam telling him he can’t do a relationship, has a lot of personal shit he needs to work through before he can think of dating someone. It’s true, mostly, and they end up not texting much after, something that doesn’t bother Danny too much.  
\-----  
And now Danny’s here: nineteen years old and about to go on a date with some guy named Julian he met on Tinder. Julian is his age, blonde with blue eyes that Danny has to look twice at. His Tinder bio says he plays football and if that doesn’t automatically get a swipe right, him bragging about loving the Patriots definitely does. 

They chat and Julian is funny and nice. He likes 80s bands and wants to travel the world and play in the NFL. Danny thinks he’s in love before he even gets asked out.

They go to some cutsey diner and eat breakfast for dinner and it’s great.

“What do you want to do, you know, when you grow up?” Julian asks, smiling.

Danny shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know. Go to college, become a therapist for athletes maybe, go to Arles, France.”

“Why Arles?”

“It’s where Vincent Van Gogh is from.” He answers with pink cheeks.

Julian smiles, says, “That’s a good reason.” and dinner continues.

It ends with a kiss on Danny’s cheek that leaves it red and an invitation for another date. Danny says yes, and fawns about him to Meg at midnight in a park.

“He plays football, Meg, and likes the Patriots.” Danny gushes. They’re sitting on the swings, Danny with a cigarette lit between his fingers and Meg with a smoothie.

Meg hums. “Two points for him right off the bat then. How’s his music taste?” Asking the important questions.

“It’s not bad. He’s not listening to Bright Eyes or anything, but Kings of Leon is pretty good. And yes, he plays video games, he’s like, the perfect package.”

“I’ve never seen you so starry eyed before.” Meg says, laughing.

Danny laughs too, taking a drag. His cigarette is close to burning out, so he lights another one with the lit end of the first. “I don’t know how to tell him about the whole asexual thing.”

“Why do you have to tell him?” Meg asks.

“Well, because, isn’t it something he should know? I don’t want him thinking that I’m leading him on or anything that way because I don’t always pick up on that kind of stuff. I can’t just like, slip it in a casual conversation.”

“Well it’s not something that you say on the second date, either.” Meg points out. “Just...if it comes up, then mention it. Or if you think that he’s coming on to you that way, tell him. You’re good at reading people, you’ll be able to tell.”

Danny only hopes she’s right.  
\-----  
There’s a second date at the carnival that comes by every summer and it’s cliche as anything. Julian wins a some cheap plushie for him at one of those overpriced, unfair games, they eat cotton candy, and they ride the ferris wheel. It’s cliche and everything Danny has always wanted in a date. 

When they’re parked at the top of ferris wheel, Danny decides it’s best to blurt, “Hey, so like, I’m asexual.”

Julian turns to face him. “What?”

“I’m, you know, asexual. I don’t want to have sex.” He repeats.

“And?”

“That’s, um, that’s it.” He says, confused at the lack of reaction.

Julian chuckles. “Did you think I was going to shun you or something?”

“Well I don’t know. I would think that someone would have some kind of reaction if their date told them they never want to have sex.” Danny explains, blushing slightly. "I also expected you to not know what asexual is."

"I don't know a ton," Julian admits. "But I've heard of it before. You could explain if you want." 

And, god, does Danny want to, only he doesn't know how, but he tries anyway. "It's like...I find people aesthetically pleasing, just not sexually attractive. Like Kate Upton is gorgeous, but I don't want to have sex with her, nor have I ever thought of anyone that way.

"Don't get me wrong, I love porn and getting off, I just don't want to do that with other people. It makes me uncomfortable to think about." 

Julian laughs. "Yeah, I can tell, you're gritting your teeth."

"Exactly. But sex is something I'll never want."

“Well that’s nothing bad," Julian says. "I still like you and would enjoy a third date and maybe more in the future.”

Now Danny’s blushing for a different reason. “Wait, wait, so you’re saying that you would be completely fine if we were in a relationship and there was no sex?”

“Sex isn’t a relationship. It’s just kind of a bonus that comes along with it. Sure, I might be frustrated sometimes, but I wouldn’t be having sex on the side if that’s what you mean. I went most of my life without having sex.” Julian says like it’s just that simple.

And maybe it is that simple, or maybe he’s just lucky that Julian seems to understand so easily. Either way, Danny leans forward and kisses Julian quickly, reveling in the happily shocked face he receives.

“Are you okay with kissing and stuff?” Julian asks.

“Kissing, sure. Affection in general I’m pretty okay with. Making out less so. I tend to grit my teeth when I think about it, as you already know,” Danny explains. “And too many romantic things like cuddling I don’t really like. I’d rather have a best friend than a boyfriend, I guess.” And Danny's pretty sure he just said that he doesn't want a relationship with Julian, which isn't true, because he does, he just...isn't really into all that romantic stuff.

“Well seeing as how your female best friend position is already taken, I guess I’ll just fill your male best friend position. With the occasional kiss and couch cuddle.”

There’s no way that anyone is this understanding. Danny’s pretty sure Julian is some kind of anomaly that he somehow managed to find amidst a sea of Tinder profiles. Danny thinks he’s pretty fucking lucky so far.

Danny's luck continues because three months later they’re still dating. Only less carnival dates and more study dates and being cramped in a tiny dorm bed together.

Julian invites him to a home game and says he can even bring Meg if he wants because he knows that Danny gets anxiety easily.

“If you guys lose, I’ll pretend like I don’t know you.” Danny jokes.

“Well I’ll make sure we win, don’t worry.” Julian promises.

Julian keeps good on his promise of a win in an overtime game that has Danny on edge more than Meg who’s only there to be a supportive friend. 

They go out onto the field after the game with a mass of other students and Danny manages to spot Julian who’s giving a quick post game interview with one of the reporters. When Julian catches his eye, he ends the interview and pushes his way through the crowd to him.

Julian is sweaty and gross, but Danny still jumps into his arms, giving him a kiss and congratulating him.

So, yeah, Danny doesn’t know when his asexuality started, because it was always there. He’s not 100% comfortable with it, still has fleeting thoughts of Julian being unhappy in a sexless relationship, but he takes it one day at a time, and Julian has stuck around so far, so maybe everything is okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Elegant Crimes chapter coming soon! Filled with passive aggressive Julian! Tom and Drew story coming soon! Chapter outlines are done! Really cliche, teenage romance novel with Danny and Julian also coming soon! But like, July soon!


End file.
